I have been around Tree of Life for a little over 2 years and have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of PvP. Since the game is around both a PvP and PvE aspect let's focus on PvP today.

Player Vs PlayerPlayer versus player in Tree of Life should feel relatively familiar to any one with former MMO PvP experience. Granted it, like most games, has it's own rule set and restrictions (penalties) in place to curb overly negative behavior from the player base. Below we'll cover a general description of how there could be various means in which you could engage in pvp.

In general you can break the PvP down the potential ways to PvP into a few categories:

Non-consensual (Flagging)

Guild Wars

Occupation (Siege Wars)

Non-consensual (Flagging)While open world pvp certainly is available in ToL (Tree of Life), the form of "non-consensual" pvp would be achieved by "flagging" by pressing a series of key binds and it would toggle a PvP mode. This mode would be activated only after obtaining a certain mastery. This would mean you could engage at any time while out in the world, in what would be considered "non-consensual" pvp. There would be safe zones in which pvp would be restricted one of which would be the novice starting zones.

The changes to your appearance upon "flagging" for pvp could be a hostile sign like warblades or swords crossing. This would indicate you are "flagged" for pvp.

There would be penalties for doing this form of PvP. One of which is already in the game in the form of a bounty. While this is great and all other forms will need to be used as well. Some of which can be found at the bottom of this post.

Guild WarsGuild Wars could become one of the more common methods to openly engage in guild versus guild. This option would only be available to guild leaders and vice leaders of the guild.

Guild wars could function in one of two ways, consensual (where both guilds accept the declaration), and non-consensual whereby declaring guild forces the war and pays a set amount of silver to fund the war. (In which the war is continued until the funds are depleted or declaration is cancled from the aggressor)

All players in both guilds may engage in open pvp any where outside of safe zones, regardless of level, and with no penalties.

*Multiple guild wars could be declared and or engaged at any one time

Occupation (Siege Wars)Occupation also could be called sieges, involve faction versus faction in the attempt to occupy a region. Where the objective is to eliminate all opposing siege camps while not losing your own.

This type of PvP would only happen once a week. Sieges would last for a certain mount of time but no longer than 4 hours.

Pre-OccupationPrior to the start of the siege you will need to purchase a base plan from Mr. Boboo for "x" amount of gold. Once a guild in a faction has purchased a base plan the plan must be taken to the region you intend to fight for and set it down.

Once the base is placed everyone in your faction can help build the fortification. You will need to finish the construction prior to sieges starting to participate.

Siege MechanicsOnce the siege has begun your factions objective is to defend your base and destroy the other faction bases. Your faction will have four hours to be the last one standing. During the siege you will be able to freely attack anyone in opposing factions without any penalties. At the end of the four hours if all but one base is destroyed the faction the based is owned by will become the new owners of the region.

Occupation BenefitsSuccessfully claiming a region will generate a buff. Which will give anyone in your faction a better gathering rate of the materials in the area. The buff will be similar to the Blessing lvl 2 buff.

PenaltiesCould be one of the main methods in Tree of Life to curb negative player behavior while still allowing for the freedom to play the game with a criminal mindset is death penalties in PvP.

Most forms of pvp listed above don't have heavily penalize you for dying. However if you engage in several non-consensual forms of pvp (flagging on players) and repeatedly kill or engage in other activies "lock picking" while not being at war with the guild. You will lower your overal reputation and could become negative.

Once your reputation is negative the following things could happen to you upon death:

Respawn location being randomized (could be revived in a completely different region)

Item's can lose 100% durability

Become attackable by any other players (even same faction can attack you without the players having to "flag" to attack you)

Mr. Boboo won't talk to you (you won't be able to sell anything to Mr. Boboo)

Mastery could drop by a % depending on how negative your reputation is.

You can recover from these penalties by grinding your reputation back up into the positive state, and everything will return to normal besides if you lost mastery you would have to regain the mastery through grinding once again.